


Maturity

by rageprufrock



Category: Smallville
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-19
Updated: 2010-07-19
Packaged: 2017-10-10 16:16:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/101673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rageprufrock/pseuds/rageprufrock
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lex is starting to get it now.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Maturity

Lex gets it now.

  
Really gets it.

  
Because apparently, at age sixteen, everyone is hideous. Just hideous. Creatively  
amalgamated masses of self-righteous bastard-tendencies and really cruel turns of phrase.  
Satan is channeled through teenagers.

  
Lex should know; he _swears_ that he shot up with the devil before. But it was  
Metropolis, and he hadn't slept in seventy-nine hours, and no one could really  
_guarantee_ that whatever he'd put in his system hadn't been cut with powdered bleach.

  
Not that, back then, Lex would have cared either way.

  
Lex has tried to talk on Clark's level, behave on Clark's level, get his fingers on the  
pulsepoint of youth in Smallville because to stalk effectively, one must know their prey.

  
And now that Lex _knows_ about the youth of Smallville, he'd just as rather never have  
tried, because the youth of Smallville tend to be boring, vacuous little motherfuckers,  
selfish little pieces of shit who don't have any peripheral vision. If it isn't fairy-princessoh  
-woe-the-fuck-is-me, my parents died, then it's sure-I'll-take-your-time-and-your-souland  
-break-it-all-to-little-pieces. Lex can do _so much better_.

  
It's been an incredibly shitty few weeks.

  
And if Lex was more like the godforsaken youth of Smallville, he'd pick up his phone,  
find that rolodex that Helen doesn't know about, and make a few convenient calls. He  
knows people who know people who would drop on all fours and beg like they've never  
_heard_ the word dignity if he were to agree to stop by. Lex could forget, for a while.

  
But that's the other thing about not _being_ a godforsaken teenager:

  
He just _can't_.

  
He tells himself that he's only twenty-two, that really, he should still be in college,  
wasting away his weekends on women or Lord of the Rings movie-geek-a-thons. He  
should still be sneaking in extra time in the labs to play with liquid oxygen. He should  
get bored reading about some highly experimental things going on in extremely  
controlled conditions, and try to recreate them during ChemLab when Professor Smith  
isn't looking, and she never was.

  
Lex can be selfish. Lex is allowed to be cruel.

  
He just...

  
It cuts like a knife, a quick stab and a twist for a good measure, familiar and bittersweet  
on his tongue because he remembers what it was like to be that horrible that easily.

  
He's done it lots. To his father. To people he befriended for brief moments before losing  
interest. To the pretty girls in college who'd held his hand and thought that Lex Luthor  
was really falling for them. To all the pretty boys he'd confused and ruined.

  
But Lex also turned twenty while blacking out in the back room of a club he doesn't  
remember, woke up to find himself in the ICU three weeks later.

  
Lex also should have died when he flew off a bridge in Smallville.

  
He sighs, and the car makes its way closer to the barn.

  
And that's what all of this is about.

  
The fact that the self-righteous son of a bitch thought that he could storm Lex's home,  
accuse him of trying to murder his own father as well as frame Jonathan Kent was a  
measure of how _stupid_ Clark really was. Really, really stupid, since peg-legged  
_turkeys_ with _learning disabilities_ aren't even that stupid.

  
And Lex was annoyed, irate. Still.

  
"Not like I haven't seen you shoot someone before," Clark said.

  
And then Lex's teenaged brain kicked into gear.

  
In a second, a million years passed, and in every single moment of every single day of  
every single month and season, Lex was screaming at Clark at the top of his lungs  
_exactly_ what he deserved to hear, exactly that all sixteen year old boys need to have  
shoved down their throat - have forced into their mouths until they're choking on it. And  
yeah, the rape parallel is strong there, and since Lex is a shithead and he _hates Clark_  
right now, he doesn't give a fuck.

  
Lex is almost entirely sure that he would throw Clark in a back room at the Velvet  
Lounge and sell lube for forty cents a pop, since hearing Clark _sob_ would be an  
incredibly satisfying experience right now.

  
And nothing brings a fucker down a notch than to take it up the ass - a lot.

  
Lex should know. God, he was such a little bastard.

  
"Fucking _karma_," Lex hisses, and sits stubbornly in his car.

  
He's really glad he's angry. Because angry blocks out the other things.

  
Angry numbs the disgust with himself, because he thinks that he _could_ have killed his  
father, and then he'd be just like Lionel. The only murder victim ever proud of his  
murderer for the act itself.

  
Grief because LexCorp is gone and Lex had Big Ideas, and employees, and he had to call  
Sheryl that afternoon and tell her she was being released, and listened to her cry and then  
comfort him for twenty minutes. Sheryl has five kids; Lex has a fucking _trust fund_.  
He is going to wire her money. He doesn't know how, he's just going to do it, because he  
_hates this_.

  
Exhaustion because everything is going so horribly, horribly wrong. And Lex can barely  
keep his eyes open, barely stay awake and keep fighting. He's _tired_ of having to deal  
with Clark's temper tantrums, and he's starting to see why people make friends in their  
own age brackets: surviving adolescence once is bad enough, doing it twice is heinous,  
cruel and unusual torture. Lex isn't cut out for that sort of shit.

  
And a void, black and deep and very terribly scary.

  
He wonders what would fill it, what would make Lex better. "I'm sorry, Lex." Maybe.  
"Lex, I'm an enormous ass. Please, take back LexCorp, and while you're at it, why don't  
you kick Dominic in the testicles a few times, please." Possibly, but even if not, very fun.

  
And the tired takes over, seeps into his skin, melts into his bones.

  
He's walking up the barn steps now, shoulders squared but too-purposefully, like he's  
practicing what he's going to say in his head when really, all that Lex can think about is  
how Clark is a fucking jackass and how Lex needs him anyway, needs Clark _because_  
Clark is a piece of shit, and Lex _doesn't care_.

  
How does a Luthor love someone? He lets himself be destroyed.

  
His footsteps are loud in the room, and Lex knows that if he doesn't do this, Clark never  
will. Just stumble into and out of his life occasionally, bright-eyed and stupid, never  
really knowing that he's still holding the knife, dripping with blood.

  
So Clark looks up, green irises swimming with the _want_ to apologize, and the same  
farmish pride telling him that he can't. Not to Lex. Not at the alter of Luthor.

  
Lex takes a deep breath.

  
Because Clark's only sixteen, and the fact that he keeps coming back has to mean  
something.

  
"How's your dad?"

  
It's that word: resigned.

  
And yeah, Lex has raved. Lex has razed. Lex has revolted.

  
Lex can work with this. For the time being, at least.


End file.
